Jo-Jo’s Bizarre Adventure

People have said in the past that originality is dead – everything that can be done has been and nothing is new any more. Well, think again! The people at Capcom (being the fighting game experts that they are) have tried to re-invent the wheel and bring out something entirely different… a 2-D beat-’em-up! Are you excited yet? Okay, so maybe we’re being just a tad cynical about Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure but when you consider the fact that nearly all StreetFighter-esque fighting games are the same, you’ll understand why. Still, at least with this latest effort Capcom is trying something a little more imaginative – it’s still a 2-D beat-’em-up but there’s a bit more to it than that… As the title suggests, Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure is a bit on the odd side. Based on some sort of weird Japanese comicbook that we don’t even want to know about, it follows a troop of ‘adventurers’ as they make their way around the world, looking for some sort of big bad-guy so they can beat him up a bit… just for a laugh. Still, it’s a better plot than most fighting games these days.

Each of the unique characters have their own alter-egos who help them fight, known as Stands. Ranging from demonic ventriloquist dummies and boxing shadows to weird tentacle… things, they all have their own methods of attack and can make the difference between winning and losing a match. Of course, mastering how each one can help takes a bit of getting used to – depending on whether they’re active or not can totally change the way your character fights. And to be honest, that’s part of the problem. With various Stands zipping in and out of fights like crazy, everything seems to get just a bit too confusing incredibly quickly. The moves for each character change when a Stand is used or removed from play – for example, Super Attacks can only be used if you’ve got enough Super Energy and your Stand is ready to fight. The other major problem that really stops Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure from being a ground-breaking beat-’em-up is that it isn’t ground-breaking AT ALL. The Capcom folk couldn’t have created a more generic fighter if they tried – group of ‘misfit’ adventure-types try to take on evil power and stop him from conquering world. Whoopee. It’s not like it’s even that different from all the other 2-D beat-’em-ups they’ve done in the past; talk about flogging a dead horse.

Just like Capcom’s other big title of the moment, StreetFighter 3: Double Impact, you get two games on the one disc– Jojo’s Venture and Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure. The problem, though, is that the differences between the two are minimal and with the addition of more characters in the second game, you’ve got to question why the first is even included. Again, we think that Capcom might have done it just for that added ‘value’ factor. Ho hum. In the long run, it’s all a bit hit and miss – in trying to create something a bit different, Capcom seems to have proved just how stale games like this are getting. It’s not that we hate 2-D beatem- ups; after all, we can hardly wait for Marvel Vs Capcom 2 later in the year. No, the problem here is that no matter how hard we tried, we just couldn’t enjoy this one. At all. Is it just us getting old? Somehow, we doubt it very much…

Format

Dreamcast

Developer

Capcom

Publisher

Virgin Interactive

Genre

Beat-'em-up

Number of Players

2

Release Date

31/10/1999

Price

39.99

Score

5.8

Final Verdict

A little too bizarre for its own good &ndash; despite trying to do something original, it just ends up being mediocre. Is that really what you want? IS IT?